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This March 1943, WW-II era, advertisement showed how newly developed infrared film could be used to detect camouflaged areas.
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KodakInfrared Film spots the "make believe" of enemy camouflage |
| NOW YOU SEE IT. Before the camouflage experts went to work, this factory - a model, for test purposes - was photographed from the air on conventional panchromatic film. The bomber's eye would see what you see - a perfect set-up for destruction. |
| NOW YOU DON'T. With camouflage materials - false structures, netting, cloth streamers, paint, and artificial trees - the experts have fooled the camera, and the bombardier. To the aerial camera loaded with panchromatic film, even the marks of erosion on the slope by the railroad tracks have disappeared. |
| BUT HERE IT IS AGAIN. With Kodak Infrared Film in the aerial cameras, pictures like this are brought back from an observation flight. On Infrared pictures, the false, "dead" camouflage materials look almost black. The natural landscape is unnaturally light. A trained cameraman, with one look, knows where the bombs should strike. |
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CAMOUFLAGE is the highly developed art of pulling the wool over an enemy's eyes ... an art which is finding old methods ineffectual, in this war.
This is in a measure due to Kodak's development of a new type of film whose vision goes far beyond that of the human eye.
Natural grass and foliage contain chlorophyll - Nature's coloring matter.
Camouflage materials lack this living substance.
Chlorophyll reflects invisible infrared light, making the natural areas look light in the picture - almost white.
In violent contrast, the "dead" camouflaged areas show up dark - almost black - in the pictures.
Moreover, Infrared Film is able to penetrate through the haze of a "low-visibility" day, and return from a reconnaissance flight with pictures in clear detail.
Here again it far exceeds the power of the human eye.
Working with our Army and Navy flyers and technicians, Kodak has carried this new technique of camouflage detection to high efficiency - and has, for our own use, helped develop camouflage which defies detection ... Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, N.Y.
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Early Ad for Infrared Film